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Killian had done the same thing – but with an unmatched crazy that not even we were comfortable with.
I had told Chief Matthews that his son was safe and hidden from public view. His location was kept secret from everyone unless it was important.
Chief Matthews had taken that in stride when I recounted the moment we found Killian at Bondage Palace, yet again. I skirted unimportant details, but the chief was unimpressed with the progress of the investigation.
“I know you committed him,” Chief Matthews began, breaking the silence. “But it’s all right. I’ve known for a while that he had his mother’s disease. I was just hoping you weren’t so smitten that you couldn’t see past it.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just didn’t.
“Look, you’re bringing me a lot of information, and it’s definitely guiding the case. No rock unturned at this point. Now that I don’t have to worry about Killian, I need your all. Everything. Find this Finn. Figure out what he knows. Better yet, bring him to me. I’m going to interrogate this one.”
“You?”
“Yes. He hurt my son, and I need to know why.”
I realized what a terrible idea that was. Finn knew everything about us. If the chief got his hands on that kid, we would be dead men walking. I silently accepted my task, already running through ideas that wouldn’t kill us all. I had slowed down the investigation for years, but now that Chief Matthews was bringing on additional help to speed up the process? I wouldn’t be so lucky.
It was only a matter of time before someone made the connection.
SLASH
We were falling apart. There was no other way of explaining it. Aeron wouldn’t answer my calls. The one letter I had sent to Killian had been returned. He wasn’t allowed visitors during the three-day hold as they assessed him. And I needed answers, which was why I was seated across from Dr. Harley, trying to explain Killian’s symptoms without naming Killian in person.
“Are you trying to tell me there’s a patient with HMD?” Dr. Harley’s eyes glittered with the possibilities of studying the patient. I couldn’t even blame him. HMD was rare, and I felt the same way about some of the diagnoses I had stumbled on from time to time.
“Yes, well, maybe. I don’t know. You mentioned that a patient with HMD, their psyche fractures?”
Dr. Harley nodded. “Yes, over time, their psyche breaks down. It manifests as alters, but it’s really just their emotions working against them. However, the case you’ve presented me doesn’t fit that mold. Are you sure this patient has HMD?”
I was beginning to doubt that Killian had his mother’s diagnosis. I didn’t care if it was hereditary; Killian wasn’t fracturing. He was getting meaner, darker. His psyche was revealing itself, becoming tougher and more confident. Aeron had explained a little of what it was like to be around Killian’s mother toward the end, and none of that matched what we were seeing with Killian. “No,” I finally said.
“The symptoms are fascinating, though. Let me keep digging. Are you going to let me meet this patient?”
I shook my head, pushing myself out of the chair. There was no way in hell Killian and Dr. Harley would ever be in a room together if I could help it. As proficient in his job as the doctor was, he treated his patients more like lab rats than human beings.
Stalking back into my office, I narrowly avoided running into Niles, raging at him when he tried to give me yet another case to work on. I couldn’t fucking focus while my family was falling apart, and while I had pretty much just figured out that Killian had some undiagnosed disorder.
Niles cowered against the wall as I threw shit around the room, winging one of my favorite scalpels just to the right of his head. It sliced through the wall and hung there, wiggling from the force I had set behind it.
“I should fire you. A doctor can not fucking lose his temper like that!”
Casey’s death had hit me harder than I had hoped. She had been a nightmare, but she had still been a mother at times. That death hadn’t sat right with me. And Killian’s absence – he really had been the glue between us three. We had never worked so well together, and now… it was like everything we had built was falling apart.
“Then fire me, Niles. I’m so fucking tired of this. Of pretending that I don’t hate this, all of this. The rules and the games.”
“What are you talking about? I thought you liked being a surgeon. Sure, you’re not a people person, but…”
“She’s dead, Niles. Dead. I can’t—” Those words held a lot more than Niles knew. One of my lovers was in a mental institution. Another one had fallen off the grid. And the strongest of us had been tasked with bringing us in. The toll it was taking on him…
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you break. Goddamn… Ryker, take the fucking sabbatical. The whole thing. I will fire you if I see you walk through those doors in the next three months. You need to grieve, and I haven’t let you…”
I packed up and walked out while he was still talking. I needed someone to ground me the way Samael used to – the way that Killian now did. I needed to let that boy know we hadn’t betrayed him, that we wouldn’t leave him alone. But first, I needed to bring Aeron home, and for that, I would need Samael’s help.
SAMAEL
“What do you mean that we’re not working hard enough?” I yelled at Chief Matthews. He’d been on my ass for a while, trying to drag information out of me about The Three Terrors. There wasn’t anything to give. Any information I had to offer would put one of us in the limelight. Worse, now that Killian was ours, it would put him out there too, and I couldn’t fucking handle the idea of Killian behind bars.
“Look,” Chief Matthews rounded the desk and parked his ass on the edge, glaring at me. “We’ve been working on this case for years. It’s getting worse.” He slapped a folder with Jenny’s case onto the desk. “And now we’re getting copycats or fanatics? Not to mention that my boy got roped into this shit. It’s out of my hands, Merchant.”
